"I lit the lamps in the lighthouse tower,For the sun dropped down and the day was dead;They shone like a brilliant clustered flower,Two golden and five red."
"I lit the lamps in the lighthouse tower,For the sun dropped down and the day was dead;They shone like a brilliant clustered flower,Two golden and five red."
"I lit the lamps in the lighthouse tower,
For the sun dropped down and the day was dead;
They shone like a brilliant clustered flower,
Two golden and five red."
The Isles of Shoals are a remarkable formation—rugged ledges of rock out in the ocean bearing scarcely any vegetation; and on some of them not a blade of grass is seen. Four islands stretching in a line make the outside of the strange group—bare reefs, with water-worn, flinty surfaces, against which the sea beats. Not a tree grew anywhere until a little one was planted on Appledore, in front of the hotel, and another dwarf was coaxed to grow in the little old graveyard on Star Island. Their best vegetation was low huckleberry bushes, until someone thought of gathering soil enough to make grasspatches for a cow or two. The utter desolation of these rocks, thus cast off apparently from the rest of the world, can hardly be realized, yet they have their admirers. Celia Thaxter, the poetess, was the daughter of the White's Island lightkeeper, and to her glowing pen much of their fame is due. She died on Appledore in 1894. The curious name of these islands first appears in the log of their discoverer, Champlain, who coasted along here in 1605. They were always prolific fishery grounds, and the name seems to have been given them from "the shoaling or schooling of the fish around them." In a deed from the Indians in 1629 they are called the Isles of Shoals. Captain John Smith visited and described them in 1614, and with his customary audacity tried to name them "Smith's Islands," but without success. The boundary-line dividing Maine and New Hampshire passes through the group between Star and Appledore. The peculiar grouping makes a good harbor between these two, opening westward towards the mainland, and amply protected from the sea by the smaller islands outside. These rugged crags resemble the bald and rounded peaks of a sunken volcano thrust upward from the sea, with this little harbor forming its crater. When Nathaniel Hawthorne visited them, he wrote: "As much as anything else, it seems as if some of the massive materials of the world remained superfluous after the Creator had finished, and were carelessly throwndown here, where the millionth part of them emerge from the sea, and in the course of thousands of years have become partially bestrewn with a little soil." Their savagery during violent storms, when surrounded by surf and exposed to the ocean's wildest fury, becomes almost overwhelming, and they actually seem to reel beneath the feet.
Star Island originally had a village of fishermen, until they were sent away to make room for the summer hotel. It was the town of Gosport, and its little church and tiny bell-tower are visible from afar over the water. The original church was built of timbers from the wreck of a Spanish vessel in 1685, and the present little stone church is as old as the nineteenth century. It had several faithful pastors, who were buried on the island, among them Rev. John Brook, of whom the quaint historian Cotton Mather tells the anecdote illustrating the efficacy of prayer: A child lay sick and so nearly dead those present believed it had actually expired, "but Mr. Brook, perceiving some life in it, goes to prayer, and in his prayer used this expression: 'Lord, wilt thou not grant some sign before we leave prayer that thou wilt spare and heal this child? We cannot leave thee till we have it.' The child sneezed immediately." On the highest part of Star Island is the broken monument to John Smith, put up by some of his admirers not long ago, bearing the three Moslem heads representing the Turks he had slain, but vandalshave ruined it. The diminutive fort defending Star Island in colonial times has been abandoned more than a century, and nestling beneath it is the old graveyard, part of the walls remaining, and a few dilapidated gravestones. All the original inhabitants of the island are dead, their descendants scattered, and fashionable pleasuring now dominates this reef and its restless waters.
As might be expected, a place like these islands was a favorite haunt for pirates in the colonial days. Around them cruised Captain Kidd, the notorious Blackbeard, and Hawkins, Phillips, Low, Ponad, and other famous pirates, and in fact the ghost of one of Kidd's men is said to still haunt Appledore. Many and bold were the gentry who in those days hoisted the "Jolly Roger" flag, with its grinning skull and cross-bones, and cruised in this picturesque region for glory and plunder. It was near the route between Boston and the Provinces and to Europe, and hence the valuable prey that allured them. Here sailed Captain Teach of ferocious countenance, piercing black eyes and enormous beard, who came to be familiarly known and feared as "Blackbeard." He was said to be "in league with the Devil and the Governor of North Carolina," and had an uncomfortable habit of firing loaded pistols in the dark, without caring much who got hit. In fact, it is recorded he once told his trusty crew he had to kill a man occasionally merely to prove he was captain. He alsokept a diary, making characteristic entries, such as these: "Rum all out; our company somewhat sober; rogues a-plotting; confusion among us; so I looked for a prize." And this next day: "Took a prize with a great deal of liquor on board; so kept the ship's company hot, and all went well again." Blackbeard is supposed to have buried treasures on these islands, and the fishermen tell how they have seen the ghost of his mistress, gazing intently seaward, on a low, projecting point of White Island, a tall and shapely figure wrapped in a long cloak. Blackbeard ruled these waters until Lieutenant Maynard, with two armed sloops, went after him, captured his ship, met him in single combat, and after a hand-to-hand fight, in which both received fearful wounds, finally pinned the pirate to the deck with his dagger, closing his interesting career.
Captain Kidd, who sailed in these parts, was not so ferocious as Blackbeard. It is said that at first he always swore-in his crew on the Bible, but afterwards finding this interfered with business, he buried his Bible in the sand. Captain Low captured a fishing-smack off these islands, but disappointed of booty, had the crew flogged, and then gave each man the alternative of being hanged or of three times vigorously cursing old Cotton Mather, which latter, it is recorded, "all did with alacrity." It is probable this punishment was inflicted by the pirate because it was the custom of the Puritan clergymen,when pirates were condemned, to have them brought into church, and as a proper preliminary to the hanging, preach long and powerful sermons to them on the enormity of their crimes and the torments awaiting in the next world. This same Captain Low is said to have once captured a Virginia vessel, and was so pleased with her captain that he invited him to share a bowl of punch. The Virginian, however, demurred, having scruples about drinking with a pirate, whereupon Low presented a cocked pistol to his ear and a glass of punch to his mouth, pleasantly remarking: "Either take one or the other." The captain took punch. Another rover of the seas, Phillips, captured the Dolphin, a fishing-vessel, and made all her crew turn pirates. John Fillmore, one of them, started a mutiny, killed Phillips, and took the Dolphin back to Boston. His great-great-grandson was President Millard Fillmore. There was also at one time a famous woman pirate in this region—Anne Bonney, an Irish girl from Cork, who fell in love with Captain Rockham, a pirate, who was afterwards captured and hanged. Before the capture she fought bravely, and, as she expressed it, "was one of the last men left upon the deck." There was much that was fascinating in the desperate careers of the lawless buccaneers who swept the New England coasts in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. They were for years masters of the ocean, and they even sent defiance to the King himself:
"Go tell the King of England, go tell him thus from me,Though he reigns king o'er all the land, I will reign king at sea."
"Go tell the King of England, go tell him thus from me,Though he reigns king o'er all the land, I will reign king at sea."
"Go tell the King of England, go tell him thus from me,
Though he reigns king o'er all the land, I will reign king at sea."
All around the Isles of Shoals, when the sun sinks and twilight comes—
"From the dim headlands many a lighthouse gleams,The street lamps of the ocean."
"From the dim headlands many a lighthouse gleams,The street lamps of the ocean."
"From the dim headlands many a lighthouse gleams,
The street lamps of the ocean."
Far away to the northeast a single white star appears eleven miles off, on the solitary rock of Boon Island, out in mid-ocean, where not a pound of soil exists, excepting what has been carried there. One of the worst wrecks of modern times occurred on this rock before the lighthouse was built. The "Nottingham," from London, was driven ashore, the crew with difficulty gaining the island when the ship broke up. They had no food; day by day their sufferings from cold and hunger increased; the mainland was in full view and they built a raft of pieces of wreck to try and get there, but it was swamped; they signalled passing vessels, but could not attract attention. Gradually they sank into hopelessness, but thought to make a final effort by constructing another rude raft, on which two of them tried to reach the shore. It too was wrecked, being afterwards found on the beach with a dead man alongside. Then hope entirely failed them, and to sustain life they became cannibals, living on the body of the ship's carpenter, sparingly doled out to them by the captain. Eventuallythe survivors were rescued, the wrecked raft being their preserver. When it was found, the people on shore started a search for the builders, and they were discovered and taken off the island, after twenty-four days of starvation. Then the lighthouse was built on Boon Island, and its steady white star gleams in nightly warning:
"Steadfast, serene, immovable, the sameYear after year, through all the silent night,Burns on for evermore that quenchless flame,Shines on that inextinguishable light!"A new Prometheus chained upon the rock,Still grasping in his hand the fire of Jove,It does not hear the cry nor heed the shock,But hails the mariner with words of love."'Sail on!' it says, 'sail on, ye stately ships!And with your floating bridge the ocean span;Be mine to guard this light from all eclipse;Be yours to bring man nearer unto man!'"
"Steadfast, serene, immovable, the sameYear after year, through all the silent night,Burns on for evermore that quenchless flame,Shines on that inextinguishable light!"A new Prometheus chained upon the rock,Still grasping in his hand the fire of Jove,It does not hear the cry nor heed the shock,But hails the mariner with words of love."'Sail on!' it says, 'sail on, ye stately ships!And with your floating bridge the ocean span;Be mine to guard this light from all eclipse;Be yours to bring man nearer unto man!'"
"Steadfast, serene, immovable, the sameYear after year, through all the silent night,Burns on for evermore that quenchless flame,Shines on that inextinguishable light!
"Steadfast, serene, immovable, the same
Year after year, through all the silent night,
Burns on for evermore that quenchless flame,
Shines on that inextinguishable light!
"A new Prometheus chained upon the rock,Still grasping in his hand the fire of Jove,It does not hear the cry nor heed the shock,But hails the mariner with words of love.
"A new Prometheus chained upon the rock,
Still grasping in his hand the fire of Jove,
It does not hear the cry nor heed the shock,
But hails the mariner with words of love.
"'Sail on!' it says, 'sail on, ye stately ships!And with your floating bridge the ocean span;Be mine to guard this light from all eclipse;Be yours to bring man nearer unto man!'"
"'Sail on!' it says, 'sail on, ye stately ships!
And with your floating bridge the ocean span;
Be mine to guard this light from all eclipse;
Be yours to bring man nearer unto man!'"
MOUNT AGAMENTICUS TO OLD ORCHARD.
Beyond the Piscataqua River is the famous "Pine-Tree State," noted for its noble forests and its many splendid havens. This is Whittier's "hundred-harbored Maine," and such are the sinuosities of its remarkable coast, that while its whole distance from Kittery Point to Quoddy Head is two hundred and seventy-eight miles, the actual length of the shore-line stretches to twenty-five hundred miles, and if straightened out would reach across the Atlantic.The great landmark of this coast beyond Kittery, standing in gloomy isolation down by the shore, is the "sailor's mountain," Agamenticus, rising six hundred and seventy-three feet, a sentinel visible far out at sea. It is a solitary eminence, lifted high above the surrounding country and having three summits of almost equal altitude, the sides clothed with dark forests. This graceful and imposing mountain gave James Russell Lowell an attractive theme in hisPictures from Appledore:
"He glowers there to the north of us,Wrapt in his mantle of blue haze,Unconvertibly savage, and scorns to takeThe white man's baptism on his ways.Him first on shore the coaster divinesThrough the early gray, and sees him shakeThe morning mist from his scalplock of pines;Him first the skipper makes out in the westEre the earliest sunstreak shoots tremulous,Plashing with orange the palpitant linesOf mutable billow, crest after crest,And murmurs 'Agamenticus!'As if it were the name of a saint."
"He glowers there to the north of us,Wrapt in his mantle of blue haze,Unconvertibly savage, and scorns to takeThe white man's baptism on his ways.Him first on shore the coaster divinesThrough the early gray, and sees him shakeThe morning mist from his scalplock of pines;Him first the skipper makes out in the westEre the earliest sunstreak shoots tremulous,Plashing with orange the palpitant linesOf mutable billow, crest after crest,And murmurs 'Agamenticus!'As if it were the name of a saint."
"He glowers there to the north of us,
Wrapt in his mantle of blue haze,
Unconvertibly savage, and scorns to take
The white man's baptism on his ways.
Him first on shore the coaster divines
Through the early gray, and sees him shake
The morning mist from his scalplock of pines;
Him first the skipper makes out in the west
Ere the earliest sunstreak shoots tremulous,
Plashing with orange the palpitant lines
Of mutable billow, crest after crest,
And murmurs 'Agamenticus!'
As if it were the name of a saint."
Almost under the shadow of the mountain is the quiet old town of York, the "ancient city of Agamenticus," founded by Sir Ferdinando Gorgues in the early seventeenth century as Gorgeana, the place of first settlement in Maine. Now it is a summer-resort, with York Beach stretching along the coast, having Cape Neddick at its northern end thrust outinto the sea, with the curious rocky islet of the Nubble, and surmounting lighthouse, off its extremity. Four miles beyond, there projects the frowning promontory of the Bald Head Cliff and its lofty Pulpit Rock, an almost perpendicular wall rising ninety feet, with the breakers beating at its base. Farther along, the coast is a succession of magnificent beaches all the way to Casco Bay, and the broad road they furnish is the chief highway. Wells is a popular summer resort, and beyond it the charming little Kennebunk River comes down through the hills and woods and over falls, past Kennebunkport to the sea. Then the broader Saco River is reached, its ample current drawn from the White Mountains, plunging down a cataract of fifty-five feet around which are gathered the mills of the twin towns of Biddeford and Saco, having the river between them, and a population of over twenty thousand. Their steeples rise above the trees, and one of these, a French Catholic church in Biddeford, has little trees growing out of its spire. Sawmills and cotton-mills largely use the ample power of the Saco Falls. The beach fronting Saco gradually dissolves into the noted Old Orchard Beach, stretching nearly ten miles to Scarborough River, the finest beach in New England, over three hundred feet wide and named from an apple orchard that once stood there, of which the last ancient tree died before the Revolution. There are numerous hotels and boarding-houses scattered alongthis broad beach, and its people completed in 1898 one of the longest ocean piers existing, which extends nearly two thousand feet into the sea. Scarborough Beach is beyond, and around the broad end of Cape Elizabeth is the entrance to Casco Bay, marked by the "Two Lights" on the eastern extremity of the cape, these powerful white beacons being about nine hundred feet apart. Almost under their shadow, in 1862, the Allan Line steamer "Bohemian" was wrecked with fearful loss of life. Within Casco Bay is an archipelago of over three hundred and fifty islands, stretching eastward for twenty miles to the mouth of the Kennebec. Many of these islands are favorite summer resorts, and their surrounding waters are always haunts for yachts, the bay being an admirable yachting ground.
PORTLAND.
The city of Portland, with over forty thousand people, is the metropolis of Maine and the winter port of Canada, which has to use it when the river St. Lawrence is frozen. It is built upon an elevated and hilly peninsula projecting eastwardly into Casco Bay, and having commanding eminences at each extremity,—the western being Bramhall's Hill and the eastern Munjoy's Hill,—spacious promenades having been made around both for outlooks. The city being almost surrounded by water, and the bold shores of the bay enclosing so many beautiful tree-clad islands,there are magnificent views in every direction. The streets are finely shaded, mostly with elms, so that it is often called the "Forest City." This was the Indian land of Machigonne, to which the English first came in 1632, and there yet remain some stately trees of that time, which are among the charms of the pleasant park of the Deering Oaks at the West End, from which State Street leads into the best residential section, bordered by double rows of elms, making a grand overarching bower. Here, in a circle at the intersection of Congress Street, is an impressive bronze statue of Longfellow, who was born in Portland in 1807, the poet sitting meditatively in his chair. Among the other distinguished citizens have been Commodore Edward Preble, Neal Dow, N. P. Willis, Mrs. Parton (Fanny Fern) and Thomas B. Reed, who long represented Portland in Congress. The city has an air of comfort, and its broad-fronted, vine-covered homes look enticing. From its hills the outlook is superb, particularly that from the Eastern Promenade encircling Munjoy's Hill, where the view is over Casco Bay and its many arms and forest-fringed rocky islands. On the eastern side, Falmouth Foreside stretches out to the distant ocean, while the western shore is the broad peninsula terminating in Cape Elizabeth. This hill has a commanding prospect over one of the most bewitching scenes in nature,—the island-studded Casco Bay, having the famous Cushing's Island at the outerverge of the archipelago protecting most of the harbor from the ocean waves. Upon other islands down the bay are three old forts, two of them abandoned, while the flag floats over the more modern works of Fort Preble. Portland was originally called Falmouth, not receiving the present name till 1786. In a beautiful spot on Munjoy's Hill is the monument to the founder, its inscription being "George Cheeves, Founder of Portland, 1699." Upon this hill is the old cemetery containing Preble's grave. He commanded the American squadron in the war against Tripoli in 1803, and died in Portland in 1807. Also in this cemetery rest alongside each other two noted naval officers of the War of 1812-14 with England—Burrows and Blythe. They commanded rival warships, the American "Enterprise" and the British "Boxer," that fought on Sunday, September 5, 1814, off Pemaquid Point, near the mouth of the Kennebec, the adjacent shores being covered with spectators. The "Enterprise" captured the "Boxer" and brought her a prize into Portland harbor. Both commanders were killed in the fight, and their bodies were brought ashore, each wrapped in the flag he had so bravely served, and the same honors were paid both in the double funeral. Longfellow recalls this as one of the memories of his youth:
"I remember the sea-fight far away,How it thundered o'er the tide!And the dead captains, as they layIn their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil bay,Where they in battle died."
"I remember the sea-fight far away,How it thundered o'er the tide!And the dead captains, as they layIn their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil bay,Where they in battle died."
"I remember the sea-fight far away,
How it thundered o'er the tide!
And the dead captains, as they lay
In their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil bay,
Where they in battle died."
House of "The Pearl of Orr's Island," Casco Bay, Me.
House of "The Pearl of Orr's Island," Casco Bay, Me.
THE ANDROSCOGGIN.
Maine has more than fifteen hundred lakes, scattered everywhere through its extensive forests. Seventeen miles northwest of Portland is Sebago Lake, one of the most attractive, an islet-dotted expanse, fourteen miles long and ten miles wide, its Indian name meaning "the stretch of water." Into it flows the rapid and devious Songo River, discharging Long Lake, a little over two miles distant, but the boat journey on the river to that lake is for six miles and around twenty-seven bends. Thirty-eight miles northwest of Portland is Poland Springs, the chief inland watering-place of Maine, with pure air, the finest waters and large hotels. To the northward the Androscoggin River, flowing from the flanks of the White Mountains, sweeps eastwardly across the State, and then turns southward to unite its current with the Kennebec in Merry Meeting Bay. Not far from the New Hampshire boundary it pours down the Rumford Falls, one of the finest of cataracts, the river making three or four leaps over ragged, granite ledges, aggregating one hundred and sixty feet descent, the final fall being nearly seventy feet, making a great roaring, heard for a long distance. Here is a town of textile and paper-mills, with three thousand people. Having turned to the southward, the river comes to the Livermore Falls, another manufacturingvillage on the Indian domain of Rockomeka, or the "great corn land." Here were born the famous brothers Israel, Elihu B. and Cadwalader C. Washburne, who were so long in the public service, representing Maine, Illinois and Wisconsin. A handsome Gothic public library built of granite has been erected as their memorial. Farther along is Leeds, the birthplace of General Oliver O. Howard, and then some distance below the river plunges down the Lewiston Falls of fifty-two feet at the second city in Maine, the towns of Auburn and Lewiston having twenty-five thousand population, chiefly employed in the manufacture of textiles, there being large numbers of French Canadians in the mills. Bates College, with two hundred students, is one of the chief buildings of Lewiston.
Eastward from Casco Bay to the Androscoggin is a rough wooded country becoming, however, rather more level as the river is approached. The Androscoggin having come down from the north, sweeps around to the northeast to enter Merry Meeting Bay, and at the bend, about thirty miles from Portland, is Brunswick, at the head of tidewater, with over six thousand population, largely employed in its mills. The river falls forty-one feet here in three separate cataracts, giving an enormous water-power. This was the Indian Pejepscot, where the English built Fort George in 1715, known as "the key of Western Maine." The city is chiefly noted now asthe seat of Bowdoin College, the chief educational institution of Maine, incorporated in 1794, and opened in 1802 with an endowment by the State. It has nearly four hundred students and attractive buildings, the most conspicuous one being surmounted by twin spires, which are seen from afar in approaching the town, rising above the trees with a thick growth of pines behind them. This college had President Franklin Pierce, Hawthorne, Longfellow and Chief Justice Fuller among its graduates, and Longfellow was its professor of modern languages until 1835, when he was called to Harvard. Harriet Beecher Stowe wroteUncle Tom's Cabinin Brunswick in 1851-2, when her husband was in the Bowdoin College faculty. Pierre Baudouin, a Huguenot refugee from La Rochelle, came to Portland in 1687; and his grandson, who was Governor of Massachusetts in 1785-6, had his name given the college, the great-grandson, James Bowdoin 2nd, the noted diplomatist, having been most liberal in his gifts to it. Beyond Brunswick the Androscoggin broadens into Merry Meeting Bay, which is finally absorbed by the Kennebec.
THE KENNEBEC.
The Kennebec River, the Indian "large water place," is one of the greatest streams of Maine, having its source in its largest lake, Moosehead, surrounded by forests. This lake is at an elevation of over a thousand feet, is thirty-five miles long, andhas a surface of two hundred and twenty square miles. The shores are generally monotonous, excepting where the long peninsula of Mount Kineo is projected from the eastern side so far into the lake as to narrow it to little more than a mile width. Mount Kineo is nine hundred feet high, rising abruptly on the south and east, but sloping gradually to the water on the other sides. To the northeast, Spencer Mountain is seen rising four thousand feet, with Katahdin, the Indian "greatest mountain," in the distance. This magnificent summit, the highest in Maine, rises nearly fifty-four hundred feet. All about Moosehead Lake and far to the northward over the Canadian border is a vast forest wilderness, full of lakes and streams, visited chiefly by the timber-cutters and sportsmen, and one of the favorite hunting and angling regions of the country. From the southwestern extremity of the lake the Kennebec River flows out towards the sea, and in a winding course of a hundred miles descends a thousand feet of rapids and cataracts, until it reaches the tidal level at Augusta. It narrows at Solon to only forty feet as it goes over the Carrituck Falls of twenty feet. Then it passes Old Point and comes to Norridgewock, where several ancient elms of enormous size border the street along the river bank. This is the scene of Whittier's poem ofMogg Megone, and along here lived the ancient Norridgewocks. At Old Point was their chief town, and as early as 1610French missionary priests sent out from Quebec settled among them, the famous Jesuit, Sebastian Rale, coming about 1670 and living there over forty years, being not only the spiritual but finally the political head of the tribe. He was a man of high culture, and had been professor of Greek at the College of Nismes, in France. The tribe belonged to the Canabis branch of the Abenaquis nation, and he prepared a complete dictionary of their language (now preserved in Harvard University), which he described as "a powerful and flexible language—the Greek of America."
In the early eighteenth century wars broke out between these Indians under the French flag and the Puritans of New England. It is said that Father Rale had a superb consecrated banner floating before his church, emblazoned with the cross, and a bow and sheaf of arrows. This was often borne as a crusading flag against the Puritan border villages. Norridgewock was destroyed by a sudden raid in 1705, and peace following, an envoy was sent to Boston to demand an indemnity, and also that workmen be sent to rebuild the church. Both were promised on condition that they would accept a Puritan pastor, but this was declined. The Indians rebuilt their village, and it was again destroyed by a plundering raid in 1722, and in revenge they then made a fearful ravaging expedition in which the Maine coast towns paid dearly. The English seacoast colonistsconsequently decided that for protection Norridgewock must be taken and the tribe driven away, a price being set upon Rale's head. In August, 1724, a strong party of New England rangers marched secretly and swiftly, and, before their presence was known, had surrounded the village and began firing through the wigwams. A few Indians escaped, but nearly the whole tribe—men, women and children—were massacred. Charlevoix writes of it that "the noise and tumult gave Père Rale notice of the danger his converts were in, and he fearlessly showed himself to the enemy, hoping to draw all their attention to himself, and to secure the safety of his flock at the peril of his life. He was not disappointed. As soon as he appeared the English set up a great shout, which was followed by a shower of shot, when he fell dead near to the cross which he had erected in the midst of the village. Seven chiefs, who sheltered his body with their own, fell around him." His mutilated body was afterwards found at the foot of the cross and buried there. The place lay desolate for a half-century, when English settlers came in 1773, and in 1833 a granite memorial obelisk was erected on the site of the ancient church. Thus Whittier describes the tragedy:
"Fearfully over the Jesuit's face,Of a thousand thoughts, trace after trace,Like swift cloud shadows, each other chase.One instant, his fingers grasp his knife,For a last vain struggle for cherished life,—The next, he hurls the blade away,And kneels at his altar's foot to pray;Over his beads his fingers stray,And he kisses the cross, and calls aloudOn the Virgin and her Son;For terrible thoughts his memory crowdOf evils seen and done,—Of scalps brought home by his savage flockFrom Casco and Sawga and SagadahockIn the Church's service won."Through the chapel's narrow doors,And through each window in the walls,Round the priest and warrior poursThe deadly shower of English balls.Low on his cross the Jesuit falls:While at his side the NorridgewockWith failing breath essays to mockAnd menace yet the hated foe,—Shakes his scalp-trophies to and froExultingly before their eyes,—Till cleft and torn by shot and blow,Defiant still, he dies."
"Fearfully over the Jesuit's face,Of a thousand thoughts, trace after trace,Like swift cloud shadows, each other chase.One instant, his fingers grasp his knife,For a last vain struggle for cherished life,—The next, he hurls the blade away,And kneels at his altar's foot to pray;Over his beads his fingers stray,And he kisses the cross, and calls aloudOn the Virgin and her Son;For terrible thoughts his memory crowdOf evils seen and done,—Of scalps brought home by his savage flockFrom Casco and Sawga and SagadahockIn the Church's service won."Through the chapel's narrow doors,And through each window in the walls,Round the priest and warrior poursThe deadly shower of English balls.Low on his cross the Jesuit falls:While at his side the NorridgewockWith failing breath essays to mockAnd menace yet the hated foe,—Shakes his scalp-trophies to and froExultingly before their eyes,—Till cleft and torn by shot and blow,Defiant still, he dies."
"Fearfully over the Jesuit's face,Of a thousand thoughts, trace after trace,Like swift cloud shadows, each other chase.One instant, his fingers grasp his knife,For a last vain struggle for cherished life,—The next, he hurls the blade away,And kneels at his altar's foot to pray;Over his beads his fingers stray,And he kisses the cross, and calls aloudOn the Virgin and her Son;For terrible thoughts his memory crowdOf evils seen and done,—Of scalps brought home by his savage flockFrom Casco and Sawga and SagadahockIn the Church's service won.
"Fearfully over the Jesuit's face,
Of a thousand thoughts, trace after trace,
Like swift cloud shadows, each other chase.
One instant, his fingers grasp his knife,
For a last vain struggle for cherished life,—
The next, he hurls the blade away,
And kneels at his altar's foot to pray;
Over his beads his fingers stray,
And he kisses the cross, and calls aloud
On the Virgin and her Son;
For terrible thoughts his memory crowd
Of evils seen and done,—
Of scalps brought home by his savage flock
From Casco and Sawga and Sagadahock
In the Church's service won.
"Through the chapel's narrow doors,And through each window in the walls,Round the priest and warrior poursThe deadly shower of English balls.Low on his cross the Jesuit falls:While at his side the NorridgewockWith failing breath essays to mockAnd menace yet the hated foe,—Shakes his scalp-trophies to and froExultingly before their eyes,—Till cleft and torn by shot and blow,Defiant still, he dies."
"Through the chapel's narrow doors,
And through each window in the walls,
Round the priest and warrior pours
The deadly shower of English balls.
Low on his cross the Jesuit falls:
While at his side the Norridgewock
With failing breath essays to mock
And menace yet the hated foe,—
Shakes his scalp-trophies to and fro
Exultingly before their eyes,—
Till cleft and torn by shot and blow,
Defiant still, he dies."
The Kennebec, turning grandly to the eastward, five miles below pours over the falls of Skowhegan, descending twenty-eight feet upon rough ledges, having a picturesque island ending at the crest of the cataract, with the stream beyond compressed within the high, rocky walls of a canyon. Here are numerous factories and a population of six thousand. Eighteen miles beyond, the river, having resumed its southern course, tumbles down the Taconic Falls at Waterville, a town of seven thousand people andextensive cotton-mills, also having the Colby College of the Baptist Church where General Benjamin F. Butler was a student. Farther down the Kennebec are the ruins of Fort Halifax, near the confluence with Sebasticook River, draining various lakes to the northeastward. This was one of the chain of forts built in the middle eighteenth century to defend the Puritan coast towns from French and Indian raids, and large Indian settlements formerly occupied the broad intervales in the neighborhood. Twenty miles below Waterville is Augusta, the Maine capital, situate at the head of navigation, the city being beautifully located upon the high hills and their slopes bordering the river. Just above the town is the great Kennebec dam, built at an expense of $300,000 to make an admirable water-power, and rising fifteen feet above high water. Here are over ten thousand people, among whom lived for many years James G. Blaine, who died in 1893. There are large textile factories giving employment to the inhabitants, and the chief building is the State House, of white granite, fronted by a Doric colonnade, standing upon a high hill and surmounted by a graceful dome. Across the Kennebec is the fine granite Insane Hospital in extensive ornamental grounds, while down by the bank are the remains of Fort Western, built as a defensive outpost in 1754, being then surrounded by palisaded outworks garnished with towers. It was here that Benedict Arnoldgathered his expedition against Quebec in 1775, going up the Kennebec, crossing the border wilderness and enduring the greatest hardships, before he appeared like an apparition with his army of gaunt heroes under the walls of that fortress.
Below Augusta is the quiet town of Hallowell, and then Gardiner, and beyond, the Kennebec spreads out in the broad expanse of Merry Meeting Bay, where it receives the Androscoggin coming up from the southwest. Along here are seen to perfection the two great crops of these rivers—the lumber and the ice. The largest icehouses in existence line the banks, and the prolific ice-crop of these pure waters, thus gathered by the millions of tons, is shipped by sea from Gardiner and Bath throughout the coast and over to Europe. The people seem to saw logs all summer and cut ice all winter. The river next passes Bath, formerly a great ship-building port, and still doing much work in the construction of steel vessels, though the population has rather decreased of late years. The town, with its front of shipyards and kindred industries, fringes the western river-bank for two or three miles, and on either hand the rocky shores slope steeply down to the water. A clergyman from Salem bought this domain in 1660 from Damarine, the old sachem of Sagadahoc, whom the whites called Robin Hood, but the place did not grow much until after the Revolution, when extensive shipbuilding began. It is about thirteen miles fromthe sea, the Kennebec entering the Atlantic through Sheepscott Bay, an irregular indentation of the coast studded with many attractive islands. At Bath, more than anywhere else in New England, has been practically realized Longfellow's invocation:
"Build me straight, O worthy master!Staunch and strong, a goodly vessel,That shall laugh at all disaster,And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!"
"Build me straight, O worthy master!Staunch and strong, a goodly vessel,That shall laugh at all disaster,And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!"
"Build me straight, O worthy master!
Staunch and strong, a goodly vessel,
That shall laugh at all disaster,
And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!"
ANCIENT PEMAQUID.
Eastward from the Kennebec the long peninsula of Pemaquid Point stretches to the sea, between John's Bay and Muscongus Bay, and far out beyond it, off the western entrance to Penobscot Bay, is Monhegan, the most famous island on the New England coast. It is twelve miles off the Point, and the surface rises into highlands. Monhegan appears upon the earliest charts made by the first navigators, Champlain naming it in 1604 and Weymouth coming there the next year to trade with the Indians of Pemaquid before he ascended the great river, which he said was called Norumbega, and about which there was long so much mystery and wonder in Europe. Smith was there in 1614, it was colonized in 1618, in 1621 it sent succor to the starving Pilgrims at Plymouth, and in 1626 two proprietors bought the island for £50. It had a stirring colonial history, and on account of its location its grand flashing beacon-lightis a landmark for the mariners coasting along Maine or entering the Penobscot. Yet it has barely a hundred people to-day, mostly fishermen, though its isolation has manifest advantages, for it is said to have no public officials, and to be the one place where there are no taxes. In fair sight of each other, over the blue sea, are the highlands of Monhegan and the rocks and coves of Pemaquid Point, the great stronghold of early British colonial power in Maine. Rival French and English grants covered the whole of Maine, and at the outstart the English took possession of the Kennebec, and the French of the Penobscot. The colonists were in almost constant enmity, as also were the Indians upon the two rivers, the warfare continuing a hundred and fifty years, until after the Revolution. The English made Pemaquid Point their fortified outpost, while the French established old Fort Pentagoet, afterwards Castine, as their stronghold on the Penobscot. The earliest settlement at the mouth of the Kennebec was made in 1607 by Chief Justice George Popham, who came there with one hundred and twenty colonists in two ships, named the "Mary and John" and the "Gift of God." They founded Fort St. George, and built the first vessel on the Kennebec, the "Virginia" of thirty tons, but Popham dying the next year, they became discouraged and abandoned the colony.
Pemaquid saw constant disturbances. Weymouth,when he traded there in 1605, kidnapped several Indians and carried them back to England. The fierce Abenaquis from Penobscot Bay attacked the place in 1615 and massacred all the Wawenock Indians who lived there. Then the old Sagamore Samoset appeared upon the scene, the same who welcomed the Pilgrims to Plymouth. He lived near Pemaquid, and told them at Plymouth his home was distant "a daye's sayle with a great wind, and five dayes by land." He sold Pemaquid to the first English colonists in 1625 by deed, his sign manual upon it being a bended bow with an arrow fitted to the string, ready to shoot. They saw the strategic importance of the place and built a small fort in 1630. Then a pirate came along, captured and plundered the settlement, holding it until an armed ship from Massachusetts recaptured it in 1635, the pirate being hanged. Then stronger forts were built, and Fort Charles was constructed in 1674, but in King Philip's War the French and Indians attacked it, driving out the people, who escaped by boats to Monhegan. Again, in 1689, the Abenaquis from old Pentagoet, under their chief Madockawando, captured it with great slaughter, destroying the works. The English in 1693 once more took possession, this time building a stone fort regarded as impregnable and said to be the finest work then in New England. French frigates soon attacked it and were repulsed, and its fame was great throughout the colonies. But theFrench and the Abenaquis were bound to defeat its possessors, and in 1696 the former with a fleet and the latter under Baron de Castine again attacked, and captured it with a horrible massacre, all the survivors being carried into captivity. The English did not reoccupy the Point for some time, but in 1724 they repaired the ruined fort, and deciding that a place of so much importance must be held at all hazards, in 1730 Fort Frederick, the great defensive work of Pemaquid, was built, and a town grew around it. The French and Indians made unsuccessful attacks in 1745, and again in 1747. Thus fiercely raged the battle between the rival possessors of the Penobscot and the Kennebec, and the ruins of this last and greatest work, Fort Frederick, have been the place where for years the antiquarians have been delving for relics, much as they do in Pompeii. It was an extensive exterior fortress with an interior citadel, located upon a slope rising from a rocky shore and controlling the approach from the sea. A high rock in the southeastern angle, forming part of the magazine, is the most prominent portion of the ruins. A martello tower stood in front on the sea-beach, but is now pulverized into broken fragments. A graveyard, several paved streets, and cellars of buildings have been disclosed. The final destruction of Fort Frederick was by the Americans in the Revolution, to prevent its becoming a British stronghold, and its last battle was in 1814, when a force inboats from a British frigate attacked the Point, but were repulsed with heavy loss. Its present condition is thus described in the mournful ballad ofPemaquid:
"The restless sea resounds along the shore,The light land breeze flows outward with a sigh,And each to each seems chanting evermoreA mournful memory of the days gone by."Here, where they lived, all holy thoughts revive,Of patient striving, and of faith held fast;Here, where they died, their buried records live,Silent they speak from out the shadowy past."
"The restless sea resounds along the shore,The light land breeze flows outward with a sigh,And each to each seems chanting evermoreA mournful memory of the days gone by."Here, where they lived, all holy thoughts revive,Of patient striving, and of faith held fast;Here, where they died, their buried records live,Silent they speak from out the shadowy past."
"The restless sea resounds along the shore,The light land breeze flows outward with a sigh,And each to each seems chanting evermoreA mournful memory of the days gone by.
"The restless sea resounds along the shore,
The light land breeze flows outward with a sigh,
And each to each seems chanting evermore
A mournful memory of the days gone by.
"Here, where they lived, all holy thoughts revive,Of patient striving, and of faith held fast;Here, where they died, their buried records live,Silent they speak from out the shadowy past."
"Here, where they lived, all holy thoughts revive,
Of patient striving, and of faith held fast;
Here, where they died, their buried records live,
Silent they speak from out the shadowy past."
THE PENOBSCOT.
The peninsula between the Kennebec and the Penobscot River is traversed by a railway route through the forests of Lincoln and Knox Counties, named after two famous Revolutionary Generals. It crosses the Sheepscott and St. George Rivers and skirts the head of Muscongus Bay, amid a goodly crop of rocks, passing Wiscasset, Damariscotta (near the lake of that name, which got its title from the old Indian chief, Damarine), Waldeboro' and Thomaston to Rockland, upon the deeply indented Owl's Head Bay looking out upon the Penobscot. This peninsula is serrated by more of the numerous bays and havens of which Whittier sings:
"From gray sea-fog, from icy drift,From peril and from pain,The homebound fisher greets thy lights,O hundred-harbored Maine!"
"From gray sea-fog, from icy drift,From peril and from pain,The homebound fisher greets thy lights,O hundred-harbored Maine!"
"From gray sea-fog, from icy drift,
From peril and from pain,
The homebound fisher greets thy lights,
O hundred-harbored Maine!"
We have now come to the chief river of Maine, the Penobscot, draining the larger portion of its enormous forests, and emptying into the ocean through a vast estuary, which is the greatest of the many bays upon this rugged coast. Three centuries ago this was the fabulous river of Norumbega, enclosing unknown treasures and a mysterious city, as weirdly described by the Spaniards and Portuguese, who were the first visitors to the prolific fishing-grounds of America. At that time Europe knew of no river that was its equal, and no bay with such broad surface and enormous tidal flow. Hence many were the tales about wonderful Norumbega. The Penobscot estuary, with its connecting waters, embraces an archipelago said to contain five hundred islands, making a large portion of the Maine coast, which in many respects is the most remarkable in the country. It is jagged and uneven, seamed with deep inlets and guarded by craggy headlands, projecting far out into the ocean, while between are myriads of rocky and in many cases romantic islands. This coast is composed almost wholly of granites, syenites and other metamorphic rocks that have been deeply scraped and grooved ages ago by the huge glacier which, descending from Greenland and extending far into the sea, was of such vast thickness and ponderous weight as to plough out these immense valleys and ravines in the granite floor. The chief of these ridges and furrows lie almost north and south, so thatthe Maine shore-line is a series of long, rocky peninsulas separated by deep and elongated bays, having within and beyond them myriads of long islands and sunken ledges, with the same general southern trend as the mainland. Large rocks and boulders are also strewn over the land and upon the bottom of the sea, where they have been left by the receding glacier. These fragments are piled in enormous quantities in various places, many of the well-known fishing-banks, such as George's Shoals, being glacial deposits. These rocks and sunken ledges are covered with marine animals, making the favorite food of many of the most important food-fishes. The Penobscot from its source to the sea flows about three hundred miles. The wide bay and wedge-shape of the lower river, by gathering so large a flow of tidal waters, which are suddenly compressed at the Narrows just below Bucksport, make a rapidly-rushing tide, and an ebb and flow rising seventeen feet at Bangor, sixteen miles above. When Weymouth came in 1605 he set up a cross near where Belfast now stands, on the western shore of the bay, and took possession for England, and he marvelled greatly at what he saw, writing home that "many who had been travellers in sundry countries and in most famous rivers affirmed them not comparable to this—the most beautiful, rich, large, secure harboring river that the world affordeth." The Indians whom he found on its shores were the Tarratines, an Abenaquistribe, who inhabited all that part of Maine. The Jesuit missionaries early came among them from Canada, and they were firm friends of the French. They called the great river Pentagoet, or "the stream where there are rapids," while its shores were the Penobscot, meaning "where the land is covered with rocks."
PENTAGOET AND CASTINE.
Pierre du Guast, Sieur de Monts, as a reward for his faithfulness, was given, in 1602, by the French King Henry of Navarre, a grant of all America from the 40th to the 46th parallels of latitude. He came out and founded a colony on Passamaquoddy Bay, and finding that the Indians called the region Acadie, or the "land of plenty," he named his domain Acadia. The French afterwards extended their explorations westward along the Maine coast, claiming under this grant, and this was the source of the many subsequent conflicts. Coming into Penobscot Bay, they made their outpost and stronghold upon the peninsula of Pentagoet on its eastern shore, marking the western limit of Acadia. Their famous old Fort Pentagoet, from which the French and Indian raiders for more than a century swooped down upon the English border settlements, is now the pleasant summer resort of Castine. Originally, the English from Plymouth established a trading-post there, but the French captured it, and then in the French religious conflicts it was alternately held by theCatholic and Huguenot chieftains sent out to rule Acadia. Sometimes pirates took it, and once some bold Dutchmen came up from New York and were its captors. But the French held it for a full century, though repeatedly attacked, until just before the Revolution, when the English conquered and held it throughout that war, again seizing it in the War of 1812. This noted old fort was captured and scarred in wars resulting in no less than five different national occupations. The present name is derived from Baron Castine, who came with his French regiment to Acadia, and gave Pentagoet its great romance. He was Vincent, Baron de St. Castine, lord of Oléron in the French Pyrenees, who arrived in 1667, and inspired by a chivalrous desire to extend the Catholic religion among the Indians, went into the wilderness to live among the fierce Tarratines. As Longfellow tells it in the Student's Tale atThe Wayside Inn:
"Baron Castine of St. CastineHas left his château in the PyreneesAnd sailed across the Western seas."
"Baron Castine of St. CastineHas left his château in the PyreneesAnd sailed across the Western seas."
"Baron Castine of St. Castine
Has left his château in the Pyrenees
And sailed across the Western seas."
Pentagoet then was a populous town ruled by the Sachem Madockawando, and the young Baron, tarrying there, soon found friends among the Indians. The sachem had a susceptible daughter, and this dusky belle, captivated by the courtly graces of the handsome Baron, fell in love:
"For man is fire, and woman is tow,And the Somebody comes and begins to blow."
"For man is fire, and woman is tow,And the Somebody comes and begins to blow."
"For man is fire, and woman is tow,
And the Somebody comes and begins to blow."
The usual results followed, so that it was not long before—
"Lo! the young Baron of St. Castine,Swift as the wind is, and as wild,Has married a dusky Tarratine,Has married Madocawando's child!"
"Lo! the young Baron of St. Castine,Swift as the wind is, and as wild,Has married a dusky Tarratine,Has married Madocawando's child!"
"Lo! the young Baron of St. Castine,
Swift as the wind is, and as wild,
Has married a dusky Tarratine,
Has married Madocawando's child!"
This marriage made him one of the tribe, and he soon became their leader. The restless and warlike Indians almost worshipped the chivalrous young Frenchman; he was their apostle, and led them in repeated raids against their English and Indian foes. But ultimately tiring of this roving life in the forests, he returned to "his château in the Pyrenees," taking his Indian bride along. They were welcomed with surprise and admiration: